A Broken Tale
by duchess-susan
Summary: A series of drabbles for Teatime. Just something that happened when I started typing, really.
1. Chapter 1

**A collection of drabbles about our favourite assassin. Tell me what you think, because I'm not sure about them.**

A Broken Tale

The Guild meant something. It meant efficient, expensive, elegant death, amongst other things. Which was why Teatime liked it. The whole place was proud of its role, of its business. It was glorious and unashamed. Untainted.

Teatime thought he must know every inch of the place. He thought he understood the ethos of the place. He understood the art of assassination, which was not the cleanliness of the kill, but the thrill of death, the anticipation as the inhumation was planned, the power you could wield on a knife-edge. Teatime lusted after it, for the moments when the shards of his mind caught the dark light of and _shone._

***

A new and unique danger was introduced to Ankh-Morpork's streets when Teatime left the Guild for a few hours. Especially as he was angry.

He didn't like the other students. They weren't _friendly. _They didn't _try. _They were all aristocrats who hadn't learnt that avoiding Teatime meant avoiding pain. When Matthew Spiff had mocked Teatime's eye the other students had _laughed. _Until Spiff was found without a pulse. And quite a few other things usually deemed of considerable importance to the living.

A thief tried to accost him. Teatime's knife flashed in the moonlight.

'Hi. My name's Teatime. What's yours?'

The thief tried desperately to go back in time, and rob someone else. But it was too late now.

'Aren't you going to talk to me? That's so rude.' Teatime sighed and withdrew his knife. The thief crumpled.

Too late now...

***

Teatime had first encountered death when he was three. His parents had left. He still couldn't understand why. He'd just been playing games with them, and then, suddenly they had disappeared, and everyone was giving him strange looks and then, when he was older, he had been sent to the Assassin's Guild, in the hope that one way or another they would solve the problem. They had instead recognized someone they couldn't afford _not _to educate. In the hope he wouldn't inhume his comrades. In the hope that the wild, tempestuous death that was Jonathan Teatime could be tamed. It was a vain hope, but assassins are good at vanity.

Teatime didn't like vanity. It got in the way. But pride in your work was a trait he valued highly. Because work _defined _you, if you allowed it to. Teatime, however, intended to define his work.

If he couldn't rewrite the book of inhumations no one could.

***

Teatime had seen Cori Celesti once. The home of the gods. A huge ice spire, that had led Teatime to deplore the apathy of the human race. It was hardly a hidden location, and yes, climbing it would present some difficulties, but only if you were foolish enough to let physics get in the way. Teatime had long ago learnt to ignore that particular force. Then there were the gods themselves. Mere creatures of belief. Easily destroyed. All you had to do was inhume their followers...

***

Teatime observed the other students. They didn't make sense. No one did. Everyone seemed to feel an alien desire to have _relationships _with one another, that got in the way and consumed time voraciously. Time when they could be study. Or playing games with people, who quickly became victims. As far as Teatime was concerned a stranger was a just a contract you hadn't heard about. And every contract was viable. For a few dollars Teatime would have cheerfully inhumed one of the eight muses, or gravity. And he would _succeed. _Some people can't be stopped, because their self-belief burns their surroundings until everything else is just ether.

And Teatime believed in himself. Because he was the only sane person on the entire Disc. The only one sane enough to consider morticide, the only one sane enough not to be frightened by anything, the only one sane enough to be able to calculate the exact force needed to push a knife through armour without breaking the skin.

It amazed him that the rest of the Disc was so insane.

***

Teatime never regretted the loss of his parents. Because they were gone he was an assassin, and that was ample compensation. But, occasionally he thought he would like to talk to them. Just to say thank you. For the characteristics he must have inherited from somewhere, for the lack of bonds to them that left him free, for the introduction to the world that had left him the way he was. And for his name of course. Oh yes, he would love to have a friendly chat about Teh-Ah Tim-eh. And why they hadn't changed the spelling of Teatime into a phonetic version that would save time, tedium, trouble and lives. Including theirs.

Teatime saw a young woman pause in the street to give him an odd look. There were some good things about his name, he considered. Without it he would be unable to say the words he chose to vocalise now.

'Hi. My name's Teatime. What's yours?'

***

Even now Teatime could remember his first day at the Assassin's Guild, perfectly. He had seen the magnificent building and sensed that he belonged to it as much as the bricks that formed it. He knew that he had found his soul mate, and it was the spirit of inhumation that had found a temple in this building, the richest guild in the city. Teatime found that a large portion of his soul was reserved for death, which left so very little for other people. He wanted to make death his life. The only companion he wished for was his knife. He had been so _happy _to discover that he could be completely alone in the world and enjoy it far more without having to share.

Children are notoriously bad at sharing.

***

He wasn't dead. He knew it. That poker hadn't touched him. Because it couldn't have. Death only applied to others, he was an integral part of death. It couldn't claim him. And yet...

Everything was fading, like a nightmare in the sunlight, and he was losing his identity with his life. No. He wouldn't. He refused to be so _stupid, _so _apathetic, _so _normal._Belief and concentration would save him, as they always had before.

The last of Jonathan Teatime's life trickled away, but he didn't. Not the part of him at the core. The soul. That fled to the Guild, to its home. And watched the other assassins, and saw their stupidity, and hated them for being so human.

And waited for another student like Jonathan Teatime to enrol. One who could be sculpted, with effort, into a second chance and a second assassin who would dream of inhuming the stars.


	2. Chapter 2

**Read and review, as ever. Tried quite hard to get Teatime right, but I'm not sure how well he works-I have a tendency to make him too eloquent, which I tried to curb. These drabbles also led onto each other and present a further explanation to Downey wanting Teatime out of the Guild, before any dogs got nailed to the ceiling. Anyway...**

Teatime was at a ball. Attending an inhumation, of course, as a dutiful, watchful apprentice. This was his education, and yet he felt he was far more capable than his teacher. He _knew _he was.

Teatime watched the dancing couples without the slightest inclination to join them. He was sure he could dance. He'd never tried, but the premise was simple enough. Too simple to be worthy of his attention, really. Instead his attention flipped back to Lord Ferwhe, who was currently occupied with a society beauty. They were dancing. This was not, as far as Teatime could see, contributing towards the fulfilment of the contract. Teatime would have to..._correct _him.

The path of correction lay across the dance floor. Teatime glanced around, grabbed the nearest woman, covertly and casually pressing his knife to her abdomen while whispering 'would you like to dance, madam? Doing so may _improve your prospects_. ' Louder he said 'my name's Teatime. What's yours?'

Teatime was not surprised by his skill at dancing. It really _was _quite insultingly _easy. _He wondered why anyone would be amused by it, as everyone else in the room appeared to be. With the exception of the girl in front of him.

He smiled at his coerced partner, and, in one graceful movement, flicked his knife away from her and into the back of Lord Ferwhe.

Teatime couldn't abide slackness. If Ferwhe was going to be _inefficient _then Teatime was determined to take over. Assassination deserved better. It deserved respect.

Teatime darted across the room, presented the customer with his surprise gift, in the form of a knife in the left kidney, and left, within a second.

It didn't occur to him that assassin's shouldn't kill their own. That was _bad taste._

***

Dr. Downey was very nervous. He had heard about the boy. And Lord Ferwhe, which was why he now had to expel the boy.

If he could...

'I understand there was an incident last night.'

'Yes sir.'

'Lord Ferwhe was not the best of assassins, admittedly, but he _was _one of us.' _And suitably rich, _Downey added_._

'He was inefficient sir.'

'But elegant.'

'Teatime put his head on one side. 'And is elegance more important? Sir.'

'It could be said so. The point is that you did not receive payment for him. It was murder. You must understand there are rules and...'

'Oh I do sir. I paid myself for him.' Teatime's stare was immune to wavering.

'Ah...'

'Please don't expel me sir. There is still so _much _I need to learn.'

Downey felt as though the boy's avid self-belief and honest demeanour (and it was terribly _honest_) were hypnotising him. The boy was strange...so perhaps it was better to keep him close and send him on the truly dangerous contracts...

'Perhaps, if you could work upon your elegance, and refrain from accepting contracts from yourself you could continue your education here.'

'That would be ideal sir. I can improve. All you need do is correct me. I would like to be corrected if you should see me acting..._inappropriately.'_

'Ah. Good. You may go.'

Downey watched the boy leave, mentally resolving to keep at least an eye on Jonathan Teatime.


	3. Chapter 3

**Teatime wants to take an exam. Downey doesn't want him to. Just an excuse for another drabble, really. I have been rather heavy on the italics, just a warning.**

Completive examination was the way of the Guild. Teatime would have _enjoyed _his exams. If Downey had allowed him to take them. It had been politely explained that Teatime had demonstrated his skills amply, so there was _no _need for him to be part of an exam. He had tried to reason with Downey.

'But it can't hurt for me to prove my prowess again, can it sir?'

_Yes, it can. We'd have no assassins left, to begin with. _'But, having shown such an...an aptitude for the noble art of inhumation everyone is very happy to allow you to forego the traditional exam.'

'I'm not very happy about it sir. You said I need to be careful-about things like _elegance. _I have learnt to be elegant, I believe. I could _prove _it to you, sir.'

'If you believe it that's good enough for me.' _Please just leave it at that, just go, stop looking at me so curiously, and respectfully and...asymmetrically. _Downey kept glancing wistfully at a bottle marked nosiop in his drinks cabinet.

'But you don't have to take _my _word for it.' Teatime caught the wistful glance, tortured it a little, then said 'is something wrong sir?'

'No. No. Not at all.' Downey tried staring at the papers on his desk instead, but looked up in horrified fascination when Teatime started talking again.

'The poison in that bottle,' and here Teatime added a particularly penetrative element to his stare, 'the one marked "nosiop", is a compound of mercury, arsenic and cyanide, if I am not mistaken sir.'

'You are not.' Downey couldn't take his eyes off the boy. _He didn't even LOOK at the cabinet, I could swear he didn't. His eyes were on me the whole time. He misses nothing. Nothing. And I am, technically his BOSS. Oh good gods..._

Teatime smiled a smile that could have lit up a small country. ' How brilliant. I would so hate to have been _incorrect _in my surmise. Almost as much as I would hate to be treated _unfairly. _I mean, none of the other boys are being excused the exam, unless they are the _upper class _ones who are not, in fact, studying inhumation. I am neither upper class, nor being schooled in anything other than assassination.'

Downey almost screamed as the boy took out his knife and began to twist it in his hands.

'Something wrong sir?' Teatime paused in his manipulation of the blade.

'Not at all. Perhaps you would like to complete a contract whilst the other boys take their examination?' Downey was getting desperate.

Teatime beamed, this time illuminating the whole Disc. 'I would appreciate that very much. Thank you sir.'

And then he was gone.

**I think this is going somewhere...**


	4. Chapter 4

**This isn't supposed to be an account of the killings prior to 'The Hogfather' that get Mister Teh-Ah Tim-Eh into trouble. These are different ones. Because I felt like it. **

Teatime found himself on his very first official, _paid _inhumation. He didn't get an adrenalin rush-that would have been too human. Instead a colder kind of thrill hummed through him, making his nerves sing and the shards of his mind twinkle dangerously.

He smiled as he ventured into the study that contained the _client_. He relished the look on the stupid man's face as he took in the assassin's dress, then the freakish smile, then the _eyes. _Teatime completely failed to realise that the horror the man was silently expressing had a lot more to do with the boy _within _the clothes than the expensive black garments themselves.

'Are you Baron Robert Palmer?'

The man nodded. Teatime grinned. Teatime's grin was like nothing else in the multiverse. It filled the surrounding space with curiously childish delight, mixed with deadly intent and an urge towards that which was _interesting_.

'Then I have a _present _for you. Isn't that _nice? _Won't we be _friends _after that?' Teatime prowled the room, invading the shadows and scaring the candle flames, which threw him into sharp relief.

The man nodded again.

Teatime stabbed him without another word.

'Why must you be so _boring?_ I was only being _polite.'_

Teatime left the study, carefully and joyously killing anyone he met on his way out of the house.He positively danced into the street. He would be _paid. _He didn't care for the money, but the status was a different matter altogether. He was a _real _assassin now.

**The end for the time being, I think. There might be more when my exams have finished and I have a little more time.**


End file.
